Tuesday, 20 July 2010

The Moon Hoax

Today is the 41st anniversary of the first moon landing. So I completed this strip just in time. Feel free to point out any errors and I'll correct them over the next couple of days. References will be in the next entry.

This strip is but one chapter in my book Science Tales, out now from Myriad Editions.

I can't help but wonder if what fuels the moon hoax theory isn't a sense of disappointment and how the future turned out.

Like, the question: "If we went to the moon why aren't we there now?"

It was such a time of promise. "Look, we are on the moon! We can do -anything-! The world can only get better from here." And then, nothing. We didn't cure cancer, or stop famines. We stopped going back or going anywhere really and life on earth seems like it's spiraling out of control.

So, of course, we never could have gone to the moon in the first place because if we had, then the future would have turned out differently. At least that's what moon hoaxers seem to feel.

That's just my arm chair analysis of the day.

I can relate to the disappointment, but I still think we went to the moon. :P

Darryl, nicely done, and as with the homeopathy piece, very important I think. You might get a few visitors from my blog.

My take on hoaxers is that they're natural contrarians who like the smug satisfaction of being in on a secret but too lazy to do the actual work involved in examining evidence or studying science. While they may have always been among us, modern media give them platforms and access as never before. As much as I like your comic, I think Buzz Aldrin had a better response: punch them in the nose.

Forgot to add: some of the most devastating evidence countering the hoaxer theories has come in recent months from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has taken photos of the Apollo landing sites showing everything exactly as purported to me. You can even see the paths the astronauts walked. Of course, since the LRO was launched by NASA, it's part of the conspiracy as well.

Recently found a web site where ham radio operators had recorded the signals from the astronauts *on* the moon, unrelated to what was being transmitted on the TV. Wonder how that got the transmitters on the moon without actually visiting.

Another great comic! I think your last point is one that can apply to almost all conspiracy theories. The huge amount of people, money and time it would take to pull off whatever it is theorists claim was pulled off is always not worth the end goal. If someone wants to make a lot of money, they don't orchestrate the Vietnam War, it's too much work.

I'm not sure that 'downward side of each arc' is correct for the gravity match. I would think it should be the 'top half' of each arc, as that is when the plane is accelerating downwards (even though it is traveling up).

With respect to the talk about why there is no crater where the lunar landers touched down, I would point out that you can see the surface in the original movies the astronauts made while the Eagle was landing and you can see moon dust being blown out from beneath the lander by the engine thrust during the the moment of touchdown before the engine was turned off. Considering the engine was generating less force than is necessary to hover a helicopter at that point, the blow-about would be expected to be about like what a helicopter turns up when it lands in a dirt parking lot... and no real crater is formed by that!

That's great!! Nice takedown of the Moon Hoax Crazy Folks. One error I'd like to point out, though: astronaut's is singular; when you're referring to one or more, it should be astronauts'. You have astronaut's up there several times, so I thought I'd mention it.

I need to make a correction -- the flag did *not* stop dead the instant the astronauts stopped fiddling with it. This is what the no-moonies are claiming, not so much the ripple, and it's true -- the flag does flutter for quite a while after they let go of it. This was also explored on "Mythbusters" by the B-team of Tori, Kari and Grant, with Grant leading this particular experiment. They waved the flag around and then let go of it; it immediately stopped waving. Then they waved it around in a vacuum and let go -- it kept waving for some time. The thing is that air does a good job of damping out motion, so flags stop fluttering quite quickly if there's no breeze. On the moon, there's no air, so they keep going until the energy has been dissipated in the resistance of the fabric itself.

As a minor point, the flag also waved during blastoff. (Apollo 11's flag was reportedly blown completely over.) This *was* due to wind, of course, but a wind formed of the exhaust of a hypergolic rocket motor.

I'm with James Oberg: Moon landing deniers are "cultural vandals," intent on defacing the stunning achievement of Apollo, much like those who succumb to the urge to scratch their names into the stone of an ancient monument.

As for what drives that urge, I think it comes from the same place in our mammalian brains that leads dogs to urinate on their turf--it's staking a claim on something that doesn't belong to you.

Oh forgot to add, the flag rippling hoax lunacy is also a result of the momentum imparted by an astronaut planting a flag, and there being no air resistance to stop it as quickly. This was also addressed on the Mythbuster's episode you cite.

I know a few moon-hoaxers at work, and believe you me, it is anti-American in origin. At least with them, it isn't a feeling of post-moon letdown, but strictly a hatred for what still is the all-time technological achievement by a country with few friends today. Great comic!

If "Capricorn One" is the inspiration for the feeble-minded to doubt the Moon Landing, then they should be made to watch the "The Dish" several times until the they understand.

Radio dishes around the planet, in different countries, were recruited to keep the astronauts in continuous contact. As shown in the movie, the technical staff of the Australian dish had to keep the signal aligned WITH THE MOON. No clever movie set hoaxing could fake that the signals were coming from Luna.

If any conspiracy wingnut can keep a straight face when s/he tells me "the radio dish operators, citizens of another country well away from the USofA, were also pressganged into the army of thousands keeping the secret", I will freakin' "hulk out" on them.

Someone commenting on another blog had another pithy remark in line with Pete Conrad's quote, this one in response to space tourism: "First we had rockets to the moon. Then we had shuttles to Low Earth Orbit. Now we have suborbital spaceplanes." I hope this trend will reverse itself sooner rather than later!

Unless you really take the time to carefully evaluate the evidence presented by this cartoon (which I imagine most people did not), you accept this evidence based on the sane assumption that a lot of well-known strangers (like the mythbusters) wouldn't lie to you for no reason. This is the same reason you believed the moon landing occurred in the first place.

Thanks for all!I tried to prove to a friend of mine that a man walked on the moon, and i use the same arguments as yours.Especially the fact that secrets are so hard to keep, but as said, people want to see conspiracies everywhere.I think it makes them live better, and life gets more interesting for them.When you bring a scientific proof, they say: why do you believe those scientists?It's hard sometimes....

Your lack of education and understanding about physics as well as common sense light refraction/ reflection with gravitational requirements suggest that you did not even get a "D" in jr high science. More than likely, you never entered high school and if you did, I doubt you finished. I suggest you get your GED and try some college if you have an IQ that can use information. If your IQ only poses questions due to the lack of common sense, then you will not be happy with additional college information because you can not apply sense to any of it.

Dude, just Google Mythbusters Moon landing! The episode was dedicated to NASA, and each myth addressed during the show was related to the Moon landings, such as the pictures and video footage. A few members of the MythBusters crew were allowed into a NASA training facility to test some of the myths. All of the hoax-related myths examined on the show were labeled as having been "Busted".

And don't even mention the Van Allen radiation belt theory, Dr. James Van Allen, the discoverer of the Van Allen radiation belts, rebutted the claims that radiation levels were too dangerous for the Apollo missions.

I think you should be thankful that the deniers are willing to do so publicly. At least you know who the crazy ones are and you can take anything else they say or do with a grain of salt. I think the crazies that do a better job of hiding their crazy ideas are the ones that we should be more concerned about.

Besides, the moon isn't real anyway, so the argument is pointless anyway.

I suspect "On the downward side of each arc, the gravity of the cabin because an exact match..." should be "On the downward arcs...". The match would occur on the concave-down parabolic arc, beginning just after the inflection point and continuing until just before the next inflection point. That's how they do zero-G experiences in airplanes...

I get pissed off by people who haven't any clue what they're talking about. I am referring, of course, to the people who believe the moon landing was a hoax.

The simple answer to the question of why we haven't returned to the moon is to do with funding and interest. It would be easy for some punk to turn that around and claim that it never happened. Shows a complete lack of faith.

One of my favourite possessions in my hand is a copy of the NASA Mission Reports (Volume 1) of the Apollo 16 mission, which you can pick up at any place that sells Apogee Books, which includes a CD of archived video and pictures of the entire mission. By all means, pick one up. They have one for most of the Apollo missions, I believe.

I would prefer to believe that the moon landing was real. It’s more flattering to mankind, and the evidence seems to fit. Plus, of the two beliefs, it’s the one less likely to make people attack you for holding it.

However, I have friends that are into conspiracy theories, UFOs, the paranormal, etc., and I’ve seen so many people attack them--not out of any love of scientific education, but because they love the fact that they have an acceptable target to bully--that I’m pushed in the other direction, towards liking conspiracy theories.

If the moon-landing-believers really want to help their cause, they should be nice to the hoax-believers, at least until the hoax-believers provoke them. Tip: believing the moon landing was faked does not count as a provocation.

I was saddened by how many people cheered Buzz Aldrin punching that guy in the face. Ironically, the guy deserved it, but not for believing that the moon landing was faked, which was why most people cheered his getting punched. He deserved it for calling Aldrin a thief and a liar and trying to provoke him into creating a scene. There’s a difference between someone who thinks they’re the next Mulder and some reporter from TMZ.

No matter how many talented and (sometimes) intelligent people are involved, how much money is spent, and how good CGI and special effects technology has become, no film has EVER correctly and realistically portrayed the physics of a 1/6th gravity, airless world or the mechanics of space flight.

Ergo, no one back in 1969 could have done it either, much less paid off everyone working on the Apollo program (and I personally know three engineers who worked on Apollo).

Felicity Walker said:I would prefer to believe that the moon landing was real. It’s more flattering to mankind, and the evidence seems to fit. Plus, of the two beliefs, it’s the one less likely to make people attack you for holding it.

However, I have friends that are into conspiracy theories, UFOs, the paranormal, etc., and I’ve seen so many people attack them--not out of any love of scientific education, but because they love the fact that they have an acceptable target to bully--that I’m pushed in the other direction, towards liking conspiracy theories.

If the moon-landing-believers really want to help their cause, they should be nice to the hoax-believers, at least until the hoax-believers provoke them. Tip: believing the moon landing was faked does not count as a provocation.

Concern noted and duly ignored. Sorry, we don't need to be respectful of them. If you're pushed toward believing in conspiracies because the people who defend reality aren't always nice to people with idiotic pet theories, then you're not very bright.

I saw an interview with a geologist once talking about the moon rocks he had examined. He talked about all the minerals that he found in them that are extremely rare on Earth, and how difficult and expensive it would be to assemble them all and produce a rock with them. His conclusion was similar to this comic's: "It would have been cheaper just to fly to the moon and bring one back."

Dear Anon. I've only had two emails from moon hoax believers (see above). This is in stark contrast to the many hate mails I received after I posted my strip on homeopathy. I expected many more. Where they are, I don't know, because they're certainly out there. Go figure.

I do believe we went to the moon.. But you have too think, do any of us really know if they are lying or not about all their proof that we did? What if there really is no such thing as an invisible falme. Yes there is evidence on this website. But maybe they made up the evidence too. do any of us REALLY know about 'hydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide fuel in space? Maybe, and if you do, and you work for nasa, then you would be forced to lie.. And it would only make sense that we would make it up too get the soviets off our asses.. I think we really did go there, but I know that there is a chance that it is all a lie too.. I just leave it alone, and don't think about it except for now :)

Last year the lunar orbiter took the first pictures of the landing sites from orbit. They're kinda cool if anyone wants to check them out. I like the Apollo 14 on the best because you can see the path they walked to the instruments. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html

Re: Flameless rocket motors.If it were a hoax, they would've been smart to simply add a visible flame.There are plenty of flameless & near flameless combustion combinations available though.Witness a Formula 1 Methanol fire.It's easier to see the shadow of the flames than the flame itself.

Re: Invisible stars in the background.Again, easier to fake on a stageset than to excuse after the fact.

A fairly recent commercial shows Tiger Woods walking on the moon. In a closeup of his booted footstep, dust blows out from under his foot due to displaced air. Proof that TW was NOT on the moon. If you watch moon footage carefully, you will not see this effect. More obviously when the lunar rovers are moving. Feet and wheels may throw dust up and about, but it all falls back down emmediately. No billowing, no suspended fines, no backdraft behind the vehicles. Definitely an airless environment.Without air, a dropped object [dust] accelerates to 1/6G per second squared instantly, which [without doing the math] is probably quite a bit faster than dust could accelerate downward at 1G per second squared with air resistance.

I did a blogpost last year about the "Lunar Landing Hoax".Go to: http://zzakkslab.blogspot.com/2009/07/uncle-walt-believed.html

The only piece of evidence one needs to legitimize the moon landing is that the astronauts left a small mirror, officially named the "Apollo 11 lunar laser ranging retroreflector array." Anyone with sophisticated technology, and a good understanding of physics, can shine a powerful laser beam onto this mirror, and have it reflect back. I find it funny how so few people know this. Obviously the conspiracy theorists aren't doing their research.

Moon hoaxers, like creationists, should neither be argued with nor tolerated. They should be punched forcefully in the nose. If that doesn't get through to them more forceful action is recommended. Stupidity of this magnitude has to be rooted out and eliminated, like the cancer it is.

You say that moon rock is supposed to be 200 million years older than the earth itself, but the general consensus among scientists it that the moon was part of the earth that had broken off from an impact millions of years ago. Where have you gotten your information from? It's apparently not from main stream science.

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Not being able to get through the Van Allen belts is the big one, however -

All of the pictures (on the magic non-melting film) that have a background have a separation line due to using front-screen projection to fake all the perfectly framed (with a belly cam/no view finder) photos.

While personally convinced of veracity of the evidence supporting the moon-landings, in every instance there is an interpretation that supports the opposing argument. While the weight of probability certainly points to that conclusion, simply because some people choose to interpret that evidence differently does not automatically make them idiots. Do not forget that you can number several nuclear physicist among moon hoaxers, to describe such people as idiots seems arrogant to me.

Secondly this comment thread seems to be largely filled with vitriol, do none of these people have any respect for the opinions of others or their rights to freedom of speech. You should frankly be ashamed of yourselves, if you think that attitude is in the spirit of mutual scientific enquiry, then it is you sirs and madams who are the idiots.

A couple of question for you to ponder... 1)the radiation on the moon is about 100 times that on Earth, yet when the Russians asked the US govenment for any help with Chenybol, the US said they had nothing that would withstand the radiation, though it was still less than the surface of the moon.2) the dish that transmitted live TV pictures small than a SKY TV dish today, yet they managed to produce enough gain to transmit TV signals from the moon, at a time when we struggled to get TV pictures from the US to Europe, and still struggle with analouge signals from Geo stationary orbits. The power required to send TV signals all that way, on such a small dish, is large, larger than what a battery powered device in the 1970's could produce

No retrorockets on the command module, a re-entry speed equal to gravitational escape velocity of approx 25,000 mph, with only atmospheric wind resistance and two parachutes to reduce the six tonne capsule to circa 20mph before final splashdown in the Pacific. I'm no rocket scientist but that seems somewhat implausible, or frankly, just downright ridiculous. See this guy's article for the full case: www.happinessmanifesto.com (lunar conspiracy theorists).

The Van Allen radiation belt is persistent and causes problems, but is not immediately lethal. Prolonged exposure to the tune of several months or more might have harmed the astronauts, but a few days passing through weren't dangerous. Also, even a few millimeters of aluminum will reduce the radiation levels significantly.

Also, re: Andy -- Russia didn't ask the US for help with Chernobyl. The US offered help when they saw the radiation cloud, on the proviso that Russia actually tell them what was going on. See here:http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/174

Really, doing the smallest bit of your own independent research on any of the hoax claims will reveal the logistical flaws. It just takes a few words in Google, y'all. What the conspiracists should really be focusing on are the things that cannot be rebuffed by easily available evidence. Like the hardcore Illuminati symbolism plastered all over Lady Gaga's work =P

Selecting certain pics, events can make the Landings seem plausible. There are many pics that defy logic. Many pics that clearly COULD not have been legitimate, yet have NASA official codes printed on them.For me personally I do not for one second believe Man went anywhere near the moom.

I am a moon hoaxer, and I'm awestruck indeed...but not into silence but into hilarity instead.I have gathered so much evidence against the moon landings, including technical one, that it is not a simple comic strips which is going to make me change my mind.

Moon hoaxers must feel real silly now that there are actual pictures made by the LRO that show exactly where the Lunar Roving Vehicle was left during the Apollo 17 mission. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14813043 Or maybe that's a hoax too?

To me the most convincing evidence that the moon landings were real and that the video of moon walks is NOT faked is watching the way the dust they kick up behaves: it does not hang in the air, but travels in a perfect parabolic (ballistic) arc.

You can't fake that except by having a perfect vacuum and a low gravity.

It's not that complicated to get to the moon. Launch at the right place, time, angle and thrust and your rocket is on its way until it is grabbed by the moons gravity. Sure, you need to do some calculations and adjust in flight, but the hardest part in travelling to the moon is sustaining life support. Every ounce costs fuel.Try the free space flight simulator Orbiter. It's cool to run sims of launches and watch what's happening.

To Eric:No, I don't feel silly about the LRO pictures, because they are completely ridiculous, and easy to debunk; the shadows are wrong, there are duplicate landers, incorrectly placed (too close to holes), and the fact that we can see the footsteps and the tracks of the rover at that distance is pure fantasy; they are as fake as the photos of the missions.

To David:The way the dust they kick up behaves? But have you ever heard about the resistance of air? The dust falls slowly because it is slowed down by air; if I kick dust on earth, it falls exactly the same way as what I see on the videos; your theory of the perfect parabolic arc is pure fantasy.

There was also a set of mirrors placed on the moon. Shooting a laser beam at it can verify the fact that we humans were there by measuring the strength and frequency of the return beam. meizu mx5 reviewmeizu m2 reviewmeizu mx5 price

Graphic Science

Supercrash

Darryl Cunningham

British Artist Darryl Cunningham is a cartoonist. He is the writer and artist on Supercrash (aka The Age Of Selfishness), Psychiatric Tales, Science Tales, and Uncle Bob Adventures.
I'm always available for commissions.
Email: darryltoon(at)gmail.com
Read all about me in this interview.